Inclusive Homeschool

Here is an excellent source created by the University of California Museum of Paleontology, “Understanding Evolution for Teachers“. The site for teachers is part of a larger site for evolution.

The section for teachers is divided into learning about evolution and teaching it.

Topics include the history, understanding of evolution, including misconceptions and relevance to our daily lives. The site is geared toward teachers with lesson plans, but there’s also a section that’s geared toward all readers, not just those who are teaching.

This is a very thorough website, neatly laid out with information and hands on lesson plans for teaching specific concepts. A very helpful feature is their search options. You can search according to grade levels, K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12, by topic or keywords.

To see everything laid out, their site index is neatly laid out and very easy to follow. They, also, have a very nice glossary with short concise definitions and pronunciation guide for most of the terms.

Web pages, also, have graphics to illustrate the points made in text. And while there’s a lot of information on the website, there isn’t a preponderance of text on individual pages, making it easy to read. Links lead the reader to other sections of the website for further study or clarification and/or to outside resources.

This is a great resource for both understanding and teaching evolution. It can be used exclusively or nicely supplemented with living books. While it’s not specifically for homeschoolers, the lesson plans I looked over can be easily adapted for use in the home.

Tags: evolution, lesson plans, Resources, Science

If you’re interested in lap or note booking this is the site for you!

eMINTS is an acronym for the Missouri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies. They created an incredibly rich collection of information, the individual units called eThemes. These are used in classrooms (and homeschools) across the country and worldwide.

Even if you’re not interested in unit studies per se, the grouping of so much information under specific topics makes this a great resource for anyone and a more efficient way to find quality information.

Topics are categorized by grade level and alphabetical order. I checked out a few, and the information and web links for Ancient China alone blew me away. There are tons of animal eThemes, as well as other topics. The Art of the Five Major World Religions eTheme is a gold mine. Even though it’s listed for 9th grade and up, the art work and synopsis of information can definitely be used for younger grades.

These aren’t lesson plans, but it wouldn’t be difficult to create one from these resources.

Another thing I really like is their eTheme Calendar, which has a link to a website for whatever is featured on any given day. The links are relative to the general theme of the month. February had links for Susan B Anthony’s birthday, as well as various links related to Black History month, President’s Day, Lunar New Year and other interesting topics.

The one problem I have on this site is getting sidetracked as I discover one cool link after another!

Tags: Free Resources, lapbooks, Links, Reference, theme, unit studies, Websites